Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

I understand the work of and need for a Department press office which, I accept entirely, must issue statements on behalf of the Department and the Minister and communicate to the press and public what a Department is doing. What I am questioning is whether in the modern age this idea of a media-monitoring service still has any relevance or value or whether it is just a waste of money.

There have been such questions about this communications unit on a number of occasions in the past. I had a letter from the Taoiseach's predecessor just about this time last year setting out in considerable detail what the communications unit does on a daily basis. He described that the staff start at 7 a.m., summarise news headlines and bulletins, the newspapers and every radio and television programme during the day, and circulate these summaries to Ministers and Ministers of State and to various Departments.

Is the Taoiseach trying to tell us that his Ministers and Ministers of State are going around weighed down with the summaries issued to them by the communications unit, and poring over them to see if there is anything of particular relevance to their Department——

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